In January 2016, the Rec Plex facility at the University of Dayton turned 10 years old. But instead of honoring the facility, the Director of Campus Recreation Melissa Longino wanted to pay homage the students who use the facility.
“They are why we do what we do,” explained Longino. “Everyday, it’s the reason why we come to work. It’s the reason why we push so hard in not only creating these recreational experiences, but really providing these intentional, developmentally-focused experiences for our students. We want to keep giving back to them. It’s not about this bricks and mortar facility. It’s about recreation being our vehicle to having this impact on students and their development.”
Each summer before the new school year, Longino assembles “work teams” amongst the professional staff and a few students who wanted to be a part of events at the rec center. This year, one work team’s responsibility was to plan a celebration for the 10-year anniversary.
The team, comprised of the facility’s newest professional staff member, Lindsey Helm as the coordinator for communications and outreach, decided to plan a yearlong campaign, doing a celebration on the 10th of every month.
There was an educational aspect to the anniversary, as well. Prior to the anniversary, campus recreation put out a survey asking students, faculty and staff how many hours of exercise adults needed each day to lead a healthy lifestyle. Among the 961 surveyed, only 27 percent answered correctly: 30 minutes. “Essentially from that data, we developed this campaign where we basically wanted to increase the level of how many individuals understand what they need,” said Longino.
The first campaign had students sign up to come four days a week for at least 30 minutes to receive a “one pass credit,” which determines student housing.
The second campaign, in February, the 10th student that visited the rec each hour received a “swag bag,” filled with a backpack, T-shirts, and other items celebrating the anniversary. Another activity on April 10, Longino described as a “daylong retreat with exercise” to refresh students before finals.
And the campaign will continue into the next school year. But what has made it work, Longino said, are the work teams. “Part of my role is to develop these individuals, their leadership capacity, their competency, skills, so on and so forth, to prepare them for the next level,” she added. “But one of the things that’s a challenge for me here because of the size of our department, is I don’t have the opportunity for a lot of those individuals to have direct reports. So I want to give them opportunities to supervise others. So by leading a work team, they’re leading their peers.”
Now, in the assessment part of their first campaign and the 30-minute educational campaign, Longino said 57 percent of students answer the aforementioned survey correctly. And because of their success, the campus recreation department is being asked to go in front of the University of Dayton Board of Trustees to present about the educational campaign.
